Manuel Gualandi's 'Dentro la Tempesta' at SPARC* Venice

Manuel Gualandi, an artist trained at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, presented the exhibition 'Dentro la Tempesta' at SPARC* in Venice. The show, curated by Laura Cocciolillo, features works that engage in a 'body-to-body' confrontation with Giorgione's 'La Tempesta' (ca. 1506-08). Gualandi rejects the notion of dialogue or homage, instead describing his process as an aggressive engagement with the image, focusing on pictorial aspects like luminous atmosphere, chromatic tension, and underlying eros, while deliberately ignoring symbolic interpretations. The exhibition follows a trajectory of subtraction, moving toward near-figurative dissolution, with monochromes acting as 'pianissimo' passages in a rhythmic, musical alternation of intensities. An accompanying publication, also titled 'Dentro la Tempesta', was released by art-frame BOOKS, with a catalog text by Daniele Capra. Gualandi views 'La Tempesta' as a 'psychic landscape' and an 'archetype of vision,' and his work as an act of faith in painting's ability to 'capture forces' as described by Deleuze in relation to Francis Bacon. The artist emphasizes that his engagement is subjective and emotional, not intellectual, and that the resulting works have emancipated themselves from the original reference.